


Solid

by vonnegutandcats



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Holiday Cheer, Ice Skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:35:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vonnegutandcats/pseuds/vonnegutandcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shepard drags Garrus out ice skating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Solid

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one shot for Mass Effect Holiday Cheer 2014! I got the user Celleno at tumblr.com (I don't know if she has a ao3 account too) but I hope she likes it! ❤

The air planetside was crisp and cold and refreshing, the water in the pond frozen solid and looking as smooth as glass. A few flakes of snow were falling from the cloudy grey sky.

“Shepard, I don’t think this is a good idea.” Garrus was standing unsteadily at the bank, his gloved fingers trying to gain more purchase among the scrubby grass. He had a pair of custom-made ice skates on and was staring at them with distrust.

She looked up from a couple yards away where she had been warming up by idly making slow figure eights, and tried not to laugh.

“And humans really do this for  _fun_?” he asked as she glided over and came to a neat stop in front of him.

“Oh yeah,” she reached for his hands and tried to pull them away from the frozen soil. “Are you trying to say you’re not having fun?”

Garrus shot her a look from under his fluffy knitted stocking cap, complete with pompom on the end, that Shepard had insisted on when he’d tried to wear his helmet, “I knew you humans were all crazy but strapping blades to your feet and running around over frozen water is pushing it.”

 She chuckled as she got one of his hands loose and started working on the other. “The number one thing you need for ice skating is  _confidence_.” When both of his hands were free, she took them in hers and started skating backwards, pulling him along, away from the bank.

 The pond was only about a hundred meters across but Garrus had stiffened his entire body as she towed him toward the center. “You gotta relax, Garrus. Breathe. Loosen up."

 Shepard dropped his hands and skated backwards a few yards. He looked at her like she'd just abandoned him on a desolate, uninhabitable planet to go off and seduce his father. This time, she gave in and laughed.

 “You do it like this, put most of your weight on one of your feet, straight down. And with your other foot, push down and away.” She demonstrated, going around him in a slow circle. Garrus tried to follow her with his eyes but gave up when she moved behind him and he would have had to turn his body. 

He unsteadily tried to follow her instructions, moving at about the speed of a glacier. “How are you so good at this?”

Moving back in front of him so he could see more clearly what she was doing with her feet, Shepard shrugged. “Growing up in the city, you don’t get that many chances to do fun things. My friends and I found a duct we could crawl through and get into this big rink, where all the rich kids had their skating lessons and hockey games. We’d get in there at night and skate around. It was nice to not have to worry about surviving for even a couple hours. Everyone else got tired of it after a few weeks, but I kept going back."

She took his hand and Garrus managed a few strides. “It was,” she paused to search for the right word, “freeing. Alone, in a dark skating rink, you get going fast and close your eyes… it feels like flying.” Her eyes had closed with the memory, and when they opened again a small smile tugged her lips. “I got pretty good, if I do say so myself. I can even do a full axel.”

“Do I want to know what that is?” he was still watching his feet as they made their painstaking way across the pond.

“It’s where you get going pretty fast, then leap up in the air and turn one and a half circles before landing again and skating away. The professionals can get a good three or four turns before they hit the ice again.”

Garrus’ browplates had lifted and his mandibles spread as he looked at her and said, “ _Please_  do not demonstrate.”

“If you insist,” she chuckled. “It’s pretty cool, though.” They had reached the opposite edge of the pond and he dropped Shepard’s hand with almost indecent speed to latch onto the frozen soil like a drowning man clutching a lifeline.

She watched him standing in his skates like a newborn giraffe about to take its first steps. “Just what is it about this that scares you so much, Garrus?”

He turned to look at her while still holding on to solid ground. “Hmm. Well, Turians don’t really live in places that regularly get this cold. Ice is to be avoided.” Very deliberately, he lifted each foot and rotated it a quarter turn, and then again, ending up facing her with his hands still holding on to the bank for dear life behind his back. “Not least of all because most of the time, there’s deep water under the ice and you know about Turians and swimming. It’s worse when the water is so cold that it’s freezing.” He gingerly tapped the surface under him with one of his skates, “lastly, it’s hard. I really don’t want to fall on it.”

Shepard skated toward him until her body was pressed along his, and held his face between her mittened hands. She rested her forehead against his browplates for a second, then pressed her lips to his mouth. Then she looked him straight in the eyes. “Garrus Vakarian, you’re probably the bravest man I have  _ever_  met. You were a cop. You stood against the geth, a renegade Spectre, a damn  _Reaper_. You took on all of Omega. You took a  _rocket_  to the  _face_. You went against the Collector homeworld and didn’t bat an eye. You have saved my life more times than I can count.” A pause for effect. “And  _you_  are afraid of slipping on the ice and getting hurt? 

He snorted. “Well. When you put it like that….”

Shepard kissed him again, moving her hands from his face to slide them around his waist, and let it deepen. When she felt his arms close around her and pull her closer, she smiled to herself, but didn’t move away.  Eventually, he rested his forehead against hers and sighed. “Suddenly, I feel a lot more confident.” 

“That so? Hmm. Well, if you can do a lap of this pond in less than… say two minutes? When we get back to the ship later, I’ll put on that red thing you like and do that move you really like where I—”

He’d pulled away and gotten a few yards before she even finished the sentence. “What do I get if I can finish it in less than one minute?” he called over his shoulder. Shepard laughed and took off after him.


End file.
